Chapter Twenty-Seven
T he Whispering Grove.
Located in the heart of an ancient woodland—old like Elwood Forest, yet not nearly as steeped in magic—the grove is a place rumored to have astounding beauty and confounding trickery.
Travelers come here to whisper their questions and interpret the riddled answers, despite countless warnings to stay away.
For the grove is divided by a powerful force that bore witness to the dawn of humanity: good and evil.
I’ve always wondered how much of the tales were true. I’ve heard of the Breathing Trees, with leaves that refract light like a clear stone, and how the grove is rumored to supposedly smell of each visitor’s favorite scent—leading me to believe it must indeed be beautiful.
But the place I’ve arrived has none of those wonders.
Well, save for one distinct feature, lingering unmistakably: the whispers.
They hiss through the stagnant air like hurried secrets no one was meant to hear—fleeting, breathless murmurs that rise and fall with the shifting mist. Each half-formed word seems to quiver on the edge of audibility, a frantic chorus of voices tangled in the shadows, never quite finishing their whispered confessions.
At least the grove lives up to its name.
The thick, humid air is heavy with musk and filled with a collage of decay and stifling sulfur—the rot so pungent it leaves a bitter taste upon my tongue. Mist hangs like a veil in the air, and I can barely see the gnarled trees towering around me. I swivel my frantic gaze left and then right.
“Gray!” I shout.
Yet it’s as though the mist swallows the sound of my voice as hungrily as a starved crow picking at scraps.
I see a shadow running in the mist before it disappears. Voices follow the shadow, whispering and giggling. I follow the voices.
They lead me through the milky fog and guide me to an expanse of water that appears contaminated—venomous, almost. An icy dread skitters down my skin as I realize where we were transported.
Of all the places in the Whispering Grove, there is one spot no traveler ever dares to wander, its creatures and evils known to many: The Bog.
The Bog sprawls in an expanse of murky water and tangled vegetation, the surface shrouded in a thick haze.
The water gleams a sickly shade of green, thick with algae and coated with mats of decaying vegetation.
Dappled light falls onto random patches of the stagnant water, and they shimmer with an oily sheen.
An assortment of reeds and cattails rise from the depths, twisted and gnarled, and clumps of sodden vegetation teeming with crawling insects litter the land.
The malevolent energy thrumming through this place makes my blood run cold. Like a venomous heartbeat sounding from the pit of these lands, it pulses. Moves. Calls.
I stick to the Bog’s outer edges, gingerly testing each step on the sodden ground before placing my full weight. The terrain is flat and vast, and I scan it with anxious eyes, desperate to spot Gray. I can’t see him, but I hear him.
“Lyra? Where are you?”
“Over here!” I shout back. “I’m in the mist!” But, as before, the mist seems to be a wall, bouncing my voice right back at me.
I hear no reply for a long moment, but then Gray’s voice sounds again. “Lyra, if you can hear me, I can hardly see anything through this fog, but I’m here.”
I attempt to pinpoint the general area it sounds like Gray is shouting from, and I venture toward it.
As I creep forward, The Bog’s whispers fall silent, leaving only the sounds of chirping insects and croaking frogs.
The oily water ripples with movement, and I jerk my head toward the noise—just in time to glimpse a slimy tail the same sickly green as the water.
Suddenly, it feels like my ears are cupped, muffling every noise. I spot an overgrown patch of decayed vegetation rustling. Heart pounding, I ease closer and slowly part the leaves.
“Gra—”
A small, bloated creature leaps from the undergrowth, oozing sores glistening with slime.
“Person, person,” it shrieks. “Person for me to eat.”
Despite myself, I scream—a loud, piercing shriek that finally penetrates through the dense mist. The creature’s breathing is a wet rasp, and its stench is so vile, I nearly retch.
“Meat. Meat. Flesh and bone. So long it’s been since I’ve tasted your kind.
” It lunges forward, launching itself upward using my arm and scrambling onto my shoulder.
Razor-sharp nails punch into my skin, drawing a startled gasp from my lips.
“Yes. Yes. Pain. So much pain,” it croons, voice thick with twisted pleasure.
“I can taste your pain. Scream for me again.”
Another hand digs pointed nails into the nape of my neck. I try to swallow my cry, but a strangled sob escapes me instead.
“Yes. Yes. Me like this. Your pain tastes good.”
My vision blurs, and only then do I catch the tang of something acrid in the air.
Poison.
Its nails are tipped with poison.
Desperation flares hot. I claw at the creature, thrashing to free myself. “Get off me!” I seethe, heart pounding.
The creature’s black eyes grow wild with delight.
“Yes. Yes. You have figured it out, haven’t you?
Us Mirefiends have poison running through our veins.
” It jumps up and down on my shoulder and thrusts its nails into my skin over and over.
“Yes. Yes. Potent poison. But it will not kill you quickly. No. No. We Mirefiends like to take our time. Yes. Yes. ”
My mind reels, the world collapsing into a cruel blur. I swing blindly at the Mirefiend, fueled by a bitter mix of anger and desperation.
A voice calls for me from somewhere in The Bog, and I drop to my knees, pain flooding my vision with pulses of red and black.
Yet I finally see Gray through the mist. He clutches his sword in front of him, black blood splattered across his face as he defends himself against the Mirefiends attacking him.
A mounting pressure fills my veins, surging like a storm, and I wince.
My head spins—threatening to go dark—and I’m suddenly overwhelmed by images of that place within me.
The place where Gray once guided me to find my magic, where a network of threads waits for me.
I clutch at the waterlogged grass, my fingers digging into rotted earth, and bare my teeth as a pained scream rips from my throat.
I manage to catch the blur of Gray whipping his head toward the sound.
The Mirefiend leaps, stopping inches from my face.
With me on my knees, we’re nearly eye to eye.
“Friend, I see. Yes. Yes. I have more friends, too.” It tips its small, bloated head back and exposes its tiny, serrated teeth.
Without warning, it lets out a sharp, ear-splitting scream, and a hundred Mirefiends emerge from the mist, echoing the same piercing cry that just rattled my ears.
The Mirefiend before me swings back to face me, black eyes gleaming with a ravenous hunger. “Yes. Yes. We shall enjoy this very much.”
My body—thrumming with pressure but battered by pain—is shutting down.
So. Much. Pain.
Violent. Sharp. Consuming.
Images flash through my mind as the world fades to black. Dark, insidious scenes of a man with a sword plunged through his heart. Of fire raging while distant screams echo. I see Death.
A voice calls out to me, distant yet determined, from somewhere I sense I was meant to reach, to do…something.
“Lyra! If you can hear me, do not let them touch you—their nails are poisoned.”
Lyra.
Is that my name?
I fall flat against the ground as my body begins convulsing—my mouth covered in something sticky—and the pain constricts my chest, latching a lock onto my lungs, preventing them from expanding fully.
The Mirefiend in front of me giggles with joy. “Yes. Yes. Good. So very good.” Somewhere on my lower half—though I can no longer pinpoint where, exactly—I feel something sharp penetrate my skin. “More. More. Yes. Yes.”
My body jerks with involuntary tremors.
The haze in my mind grows darker and darker—shifting from white to murky gray until it becomes an impenetrable wall of black. Nothing remains except a faint light flickering against the darkness, straining to remain lit against an unseen wind.
But it loses.
The wick dies.
True darkness looms.
It parts for me as I move toward it, welcoming me, craving me.
A thin layer of fog floats in the void, color shimmering into existence behind it.
A low, rippling voice, as calm as still water yet as solid as stone, speaks.
“ At last, you’re here. Come closer. I have much to show you, starting with what you’re truly capable of. ”
The voice is strangely familiar, even to this disembodied version of myself. Though the sound of it is as foreign as anything else. As if compelled, I drift toward the smoky veil hanging in the darkness.
But then I hear that other voice again, faint but urgent. “Give me something to go off of, Lyra. Shout, cry—anything. I’m close to you. I know I am.”
It called me by that name again.
Who are you? I want to ask both voices.
The first tugs at my heartstrings; the second jerks at them like a puppet master. And when the first voice speaks, I see…
Moss-covered stones glowing in sunlight. Flecks of copper rain falling from a golden sky into a crystalline river.
There is such warmth there.
Like bathing in a perfect, gilded sun.
And something inside my chest says it wants to return to the sunlight.
I begin to recede, but black tendrils lash at me, gripping my wrists and beckoning me back toward the fog. “ Stay. There is much you must see first.”
I waver, a strange curiosity tugging at me.
Until the sun shines again. “Wherever you are—win, Lyra. You must win.”
You must win.
The words stir something within me. And like a missing piece slotting back into place, I remember why.
I will not let them win.